


Perfect's for the Urgent

by capitaine



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Domestic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 12:25:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9071611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capitaine/pseuds/capitaine
Summary: At some point, Aces PR coaxes Kent into doing a douchey Seguin-esque dude-bro tour of his bachelor pad. The catch: it’s not his bachelor pad, it’s the house he shares with Alexei during the offseason.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [f_ckromeoandjuliet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/f_ckromeoandjuliet/gifts).



> Hey, I'm sorry this is so late! Happy holidays, and may the new year bring us more happy and healthy Kent Parson. 
> 
> (Title from Caroline by Aminé because I gotta, man. I just gotta)

At some point, Aces PR coaxes Kent into doing a douchey Seguin-esque dude-bro tour of his bachelor pad for some sports channel or another. The catch: it’s not his bachelor pad, it’s the house he shares with Alexei during the offseason, not that his PR team knows that. 

He spends the week before the tour frantically but carefully stowing away framed photos –

him and Alexei kissing on a mountain top, him and Alexei attempting to assemble breakfast together in golden morning sunlight, Alexei pushing him into the Pacific ocean, a blurry shot of Alexei tripping over Kit

– and Alexei’s ridiculous collection of Ovechkin merch (only half gifted by the man himself, half purchased) away in a spare room. Making the house look anything less than lived-in and loving makes him hurt a little -- he tells this to Alexei while they’re facetiming, and Alexei laughs fondly and touches his fingers to the screen, like he’s trying to stroke Kent’s cheek long-distance. 

“ _Lyubov moya_ ,” he says, warm and low. “I’ll be back in no time to make the house messy again.”

Kent, lying on his side in bed, curls in towards his tablet’s camera and smiles weakly, presses his fingers to his lips and then against the camera in a familiar gesture. Alexei makes a soft, sympathetic crooning noise and does the same, and Kent falls asleep like that, bathed in the pale glow of the screen.

-

By the time the afternoon of the interview rolls around, Kent thinks he’s done a pretty good job of tidying up all signs of his happy and healthy domestic life. Most of Alexei’s things can be passed off as Kent just being extra, he figures. California king-sized mattress? He likes the extra room. Ten different bottles of hair product? Looking this good all the time takes _effort_ , honey.

The camera crew and reporter show up right on time, filming a short segment on his front lawn - which he and Alexei pay a local kid $30 an hour to mow once every two weeks - before moseying their way into the house. 

“I guess you can come in,” Kent says, making a big show of opening the door and waving the reporter – Candice, a stunning, terrifying bombshell of a woman – in with a flourish. He’s had enough experience being a cocky, single pro-athlete millionaire to play the part easily. Candice smiles winningly and steps into the house. Her heels are loud on the marble floor of the foyer and Kent frowns a little on the inside. He just vacuumed.

“Shoes can go on the rack over there,” he offers, and Candice’s face just _lights the fuck up_ , like she’s caught on to the fact that he’s in possession of a mean domestic instinct and is, in fact, actually a grown-up on the inside who cares about stuff like brand name laundry detergent and matching cutlery. He's not, he just. He likes to keep his home clean.

Kent actually hunches in on himself defensively a bit. Lord, he can see the headlines now – “Kent Parson, NHL Superstar and Internal Middle Aged Respectful & Clean Neighbour, Will Not Have Outdoor shoes Inside His House”. But like, damn, of course he won’t, because he and Alexei were young and naïve two years ago and chose cream carpets for the living room. Filth from the outdoors can _stay_ _out_ , thanks.

 

When all shoes have been removed, he leads Candice and the cameras through the foyer into the house while Kit lurks in the corner, observing her visitors from afar. The first floor of the house follows an open floor plan, all Brazilian cherry hardwood and arching floor-to-ceiling windows. The kitchen floor is done in heated slate tile that Alexei had insisted on –

(“Your feet are so cold every morning, baby, keep warm when making breakfast, no?”

“You just want me to make you food,” Kent accused, smacking Alexei in the arm with the flooring sample booklet, and Alexei just smiled and pressed a kiss into Kent’s hair.

“Yeah.”)

\- which Candice and her bare toes seem to appreciate.

“Let’s check out your fridge,” she says, manicured hand wrapping around the stainless steel handle. “How much beer can I expect to find in there?”  
  
And like, yeah, it’s a fair question, because the NHL as a whole probably consumes like a kajillion litres of the stuff every year, but the answer is none. Zero cans or bottles or flasks or anything, because Kent doesn’t drink at home alone and he prefers wine, anyway. When Alexei’s around there’s usually a couple bottles of hard liquor in the cabinet above the stove (out of reach of the rookies), but they don’t bother to keep a stock.

As expected, Candice finds no beer. “What can I say? I’m a hospitable guy on a tight schedule,” Kent tells her by way of explanation, grinning easily and leaning up against the granite counter. “Let the guys drink it all and I just never have time to buy more. Should bully Swoops into going on a beer run for me some time.”

What Candice does find, though, is the frankly ridiculous amount of cheese that Alexei’s parents brought over when they visited in June. The cheese isn’t in little, explainable chunks, either – it’s in heavy wheels, stacked neatly in a corner. Kent’s not even sure if cheese is supposed to go in the fridge, but he’s afraid of it spoiling and can only persuade the team into coming over for grilled cheese sandwiches like, once a month under their diet’s radar, and he can’t eat it all by himself. Besides, this cheese is expensive. It’s _luxurious_. He’s not gonna waste it on a bunch of dudes that put ketchup on everything.

“Uh,” Kent says eloquently. He wonders briefly if he could pretend that he has no idea how the cheese got there, or that it was a prank played by some of his teammates or something, but Candice is already gleefully commenting on it and he has no choice but to defend his expensive culinary choices. Alexei’s culinary choices. Alexei’s _mother’s_ culinary choices. “I. Cheese is really good,” he tries, “protein?”

-

They wander through the rest of the house before ultimately ending up in the bedroom, obviously, because that was probably half the point of this tour.

“Where the magic happens,” Candice jokes as she pushes the door open. Kent just grins and doesn’t even bother to dispute that, because Alexei fucking him within an inch of his life most nights during the offseason is pretty magical, yeah.

The bedroom’s stupidly nice, probably too nice for a supposedly single dude of Kent’s age to have made for himself, but whatever. All the fabrics are white, cream, or different shades of green, all the furniture stained a handsome dark walnut. There’s a giant walk-in closet, a wide dresser with a mirror, and the enormous bed flanked by matching bedside tables and lamps.

“Big bed.”

“Yep.” Kent pops the P, flopping backwards onto the mattress. He lifts his head, shooting a blinding smile at the camera. “Nothing too exciting happening in it right now, but…” Kent waggles his eyebrows and Candice laughs.

-

Later, when Alexei is home and sitting on the couch with Kent tucked into his side, they’ll watch the video together. Kent will turn down the volume of the video and do his own little dub in an awful falsetto. “ _Yes_ ,” he’ll coo obnoxiously when the little-him on the screen smiles. “ _This is the exact bed where I take it up the ass from my boyfriend on the regular-_ “

Alexei will laugh and cuff Kent gently on the back of the head, kissing his temple. “Shh,” he’ll rumble, amused. Kit will look up curiously from where she’ll be winding around their ankles. “Not when the cat is around.”

-

“You have a lot of socks,” Candice says, peering into his and Alexei’s shared sock drawer. Kent isn’t really sure why they share a drawer – half the time he ends up with socks that are way too stretched for his perfectly average sized (note: not small) feet, which means that Alexei is probably “borrowing” and stretching out his perfectly average sized socks half the time as well.

“Yeah.” He shrugs at the camera, trying for nonchalant. “Maybe I just like my feet real toasty, man, don’t judge.”

It’s a lie, his feet are bare 95% of the time, but Alexei forgot to pack socks when he left for Providence and Kent never got around to mailing them over. He’s mailed other shit over, yeah, but the box just never seemed to have enough room for 20 pairs of socks. Whatever. Maybe Kent can run them all through the dryer a couple times and make them shrink down a little.

-

Alexei pauses the video there and wiggles his toes, glancing downwards. Kent does the same, then wrinkles his nose. “Those are mine, aren’t they.”

“Mmhmm,” Alexei hums. He’s doing that freaky thing where he spreads his toes really far apart – Kent is convinced that the dexterity of his toes is how he skates so well – and Kent can practically hear the elastic in the toe of the sock giving up the good fight.

“Stop that,” he whines, and Alexei sets the iPad on the coffee table to lie down and manoeuvre Kent so he’s lying down on Alexei’s chest. It’s not a terribly effective method of getting him to stop whining; Kent doesn’t settle down until Alexei starts to pet his hair, hands familiar and warm.

There’re three used coffee mugs on the kitchen counter and neither of them can remember which one belongs to whom. Alexei’s hoodies are probably hung over the foot of the bed again even though they have a closet full of hangers literally right there, and Kit has made herself a nest in Alexei’s partially unpacked suitcase.

Kent props his chin up on Alexei’s sternum, smiling at him genuinely. “Glad you’re back,” he mumbles, and Alexei drops a kiss on his nose.

“Happy to be home.”


End file.
